“I am sure that would not have made the slightest difference,” she replied.  “As a matter of fact, he had no idea that you were coming this evening—­I had no opportunity of telling him.  A servant rang up from the club, half an hour ago, to say that he would not be home.  Come, here is dinner.  Will you sit there?” she invited, indicating the chair which a trim parlour maid was holding.  “I hope you can eat quite simple things.  One scarcely knows what to order, this hot weather.”

Wingate took his place, and the conversation merged into those indefinite channels necessitated by the presence of servants.  The dinner, simple though it was, was perfect,—­iced consomme, a lobster mayonnaise, cold cutlets and asparagus.  Presently the little movable sideboard, with its dainty collection of cold dishes and salads, was wheeled outside by the solitary maid who waited upon them, and nothing was left upon the table but a delicately-shaped Venetian decanter of Chateau Yquem, liqueurs in tiny bottles, the coffee served in a jug of beaten copper, and an ivory box of cigarettes.  With the closing of the door, a different atmosphere seemed immediately created.  They smiled into one another’s eyes in mutual appreciation.

“I was dying to send Laura away,” she confessed.  “Why do servants get on one’s nerves so when one wants to talk?  I don’t think I ever noticed it before so much.”

“Nor I,” he admitted.  “Now we are alone there is a sort of luxury in thinking that one may open any one of those subjects I want so much to discuss with you, and perhaps a greater luxury still is the lingering, the feeling that unless one chooses one need say nothing and yet be understood.”

“Sympathetic person!” she sighed.  “Tell me, by the by, did you notice an air of desertion in the lower part of the house?”

“There seemed to be echoes,” he admitted.  “I noticed it more this afternoon.”

“The whole of the rooms downstairs were fitted up as a small hospital during the last year of the war,” she explained.  “It was after I had a slight breakdown and was sent back from Etaples.  Some of our patients stayed on for months afterwards, and we have never had the place put to rights yet.  One or two rooms are quite sufficient for us in these days.”

“It seems to be a wing by itself that remains empty,” Wingate ruminated.

“The house might have been built for the purpose we put it to,” she said.  “The rooms we turned into a hospital are quite cut off from the rest of the place.  If ever you murder Peter Phipps and want a hiding place, I shall be able to provide you with one!”

He was looking unusually thoughtful.  It was evident that he was pursuing some train of reflection suggested by her words.  At the mention of Phipps’ name, however, he came back to earth.

“I think I should rather like to murder Phipps,” he confessed.  “The worst of it is the laws are so ridiculously undiscriminating.  One would have to pay the same penalty for murdering him as for getting rid of an ordinary human being.”